Nepal Tragedy …… The aftermath

 What a tragedy? Over five thousand people killed, over ten thousand injured and hundreds of thousands suffered after losing their homes and loved ones.

Then there are some amazing stories too; like a 4 months old baby rescued from the ruins 22 hours after the earthquake and another man rescued eighty hours after being buried under the rubbles. There are many more such miraculous stories too.

Strange are the ways of Nature and yet stranger is the nature of man. It is interesting to see how different people react differently to such situations. There are many who out of compassion left everything and rushed to Nepal to help the needy people physically according to their professional expertise. Many have and are continuously sending money and donations over there to help cope with this devastating situation while some others simply sit and talk about it.

Unfortunately, many opportunists even try to take advantage of these situations.  Many, who do not really want to help, give some strange reasoning and try to explain every situation as it suits to them and serves their own interest in some way. 

Some Non-Hindus, after seeing some Hindu temples destroyed during the quake, cheerfully announced that it was God’s way to warn them about their wrong religious practices.

Some people said that those who were in the middle of the affected areas but survived and did not get hurt, or those fortunate ones who were rescued later, is because God is great; that God was kind to them and was on their side.

Does that mean God was not so great and not so kind to those who died or suffered? Does He choose and discriminate? At the same time, are we questioning or even insulting the integrity of those who suffered?

Sadly, I have also received few such ‘WhatsApp’ messages over the past few days.

One such message said “O’ God! Please send another such quake to demolish the walls that divide people”.

The person who sent this message probably had good intention, but it did not sit well with one of my Nepali friends whose family has severely suffered in his native country. Instead of compassion for loss of his people, he saw mockery in this message.

Another message said “Occasionally nature sends these earthquakes to shake and to remind us that this world is just a rented place, not permanent.”

Isn’t it unfortunate that we think that everything is about us?

That ‘we’ are so important that the nature would kill several thousand and injure hundreds of thousands just to send a message, a reminder to ‘few of us’; the chosen ones?

Does the whole universe revolve around us?

Where is the compassion?

‘Rajan Sachdeva’